Posted on

How To Build a Positive Relationship With Your Interviewer in Minutes

Build a Positive Relationship With Your Interviewer in Minutes

A positive relationship is the key to a successful relationship.

The problem, of course, is you only have a few minutes to get the employer to like you.

The interviewer’s perspective of you is key because all of your following answers will be filtered through your recently built, positive or negative, relationship.

These 3 steps will help create a positive relationship with your interviewer, within minutes of walking into the interview room

Set Up Your Own Coaching Business

The Power of a Smile

The first step is so simple it’s stupid.

But the fact is that most interviewees aren’t relaxed enough to smile.

A smile is powerful because of 3 reasons.

The first is that you look confident and friendly when you smile – your smile is your best feature. When you smile, due to mirror neurons, the interviewer will feel the same happy emotions they would feel if they were smiling themselves.

Secondly, when you smile you come across as approachable and trustworthy; this allows the interviewer to open up to you because they feel relaxed in your presence.

Thirdly. It has been proven that you are seen as more attractive when you smile. And it’s also been proven that you are more likely to be offered the position is the interviewer finds you attractive.

Engage the Interviewer

At the interviewer start, ask the interviewer questions, ideally about them-self.

This is easier than it seems, you simply at the interview start make small talk.

You can ask about the number of interviews they have planned on that day, you can follow this by asking what they are going to do that night to relax? It’s at this point that you need to ask questions and show interest in the interviewer’s answers.

Naturally, we love to be the focus of attention. We also love the people who show us this attention and will want to be around them more often.

Interview questions and answers

Address the Interviewer By Name

Like the first step, this third suggestion is really easy to implement and helps to influence the interviewer.

People respond better to people who use their name.

Using the interviewer’s name shows that you are interested, you have remembered their name and it helps to create a bond between the two of you.

Psychologically speaking, the interviewer will like you more if you both share a similar sounding name.

This same natural likability factor works with anything you have in common; name, went to the same school, follow the same sports team, live in the same district when you were young.

Posted on

Preparing Your Interview Answers for Maximum Impact

Maximum Impact Interview Answers

To beat the job interview competition the savvy interviewee will prepare each interview answer to maximize the impact each answer has on the interviewer.

Don’t fall into the trap of simply re-reading your CV the night before the interview, instead start preparing weeks ahead of the job interview – as soon as you receive the invitation to interview e-mail.

This way you will have time to predict each question, prepare each interview answer and ensure each answer sells you and your skills, work ethic and employment experience.

The simple 3 step process below, will help you prepare each interview answer (the examples we will concentrate on qualities and skills, but the same process can be used for experience related interview questions).

Step 1 Predicting the Interview Question

First think about the position you are applying for and ask yourself “what skills and qualities does the employer require me to possess?” and write a big list of required skills, qualities and experiences. You can also use the job specification or job profiles to predict the essential job criteria.

Step 2 Breakdown the Skill

Each essential job criteria requires a certain skill or quality. Create a mindmap for each required skill, as an example “Communication Skills” – ask yourself “how do you communicate?” – e-mail, face to face, telephone, fax, body language, sign language, etc. make this list as big as possible, there are no wrong answers be creative add anything you associate to communication (or your essential criteria)

Next think about a real example of when you have used this skill or quality and recorded it.

Step 3 Creating the Answer

Now you have a giant list of criteria and a breakdown of those particular criteria, you can now move onto the third stage – paragraphs. All you need to do here is put the breakdown of the criteria into a paragraph (and this doesn’t need to perfect yet)

Let’s use the communication example – remember at this stage the paragraph doesn’t need to read well as we are still in the ideas stage. “I communicate with everyday, over the phone and face to face. When talking over the phone I use my voice tone to build rapport and ask regular questions to ensure the other person is taking onboard what I am saying. When talking to people face to face, I use my body language to increase likeness and watch the other people’s body language and face gestures to check they agree with what I am saying”

Use real life examples show’s the employer two things; one you understand what their essential criteria is and more importantly you have implemented in previous roles (which is often taken for you can do that part of the job)

Your real life examples need to be related to the position you are applying for. In sales jobs communication skills and rapport building are key essential criteria, so you can edit your above profile using real life sales (or any position) experience

“In my previous sales position I was always on the monthly top 10 sales executive’s board often at the top, this is because I understand the importance of communicating with people over the phone. I would often use my voice tone to build rapport with customers and ask customers questions throughout the sales pitch to ensure they were listening to me…..”

You need to re-write your interview answer 3 times to ensure it really sell’s you. After each interview think about which answer worked well and which answers need improving. Reflecting on your interview answers allows you to improve with each and every job interview.